


Present Among Us

by Yeah_Toast



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Peter Hale, Ghost Laura Hale, Ghosts, Laura Hale & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, M/M, Pre-Canon, Stiles Stilinski Sees Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25574947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeah_Toast/pseuds/Yeah_Toast
Summary: Stiles has always seen ghosts. That's nothing new. The new part is the ghost sticking around.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 11
Kudos: 477
Collections: Teen Wolf Bingo





	Present Among Us

**Author's Note:**

> My fill for Teen Wolf Bingo square: Ghosts

Life had always been different for him than for others. To this day he still remembers the first Occurrence he witnessed at three years old. A woman was hit by a car, killed instantly, except right there, besides the corpse lying on the ground, the woman was standing perfectly whole. Stiles didn’t understand at the time, but the woman was a spirit, soul, ghost, whatever it may be called. Stiles watched her walk into a bright light and he knew that was where she belonged. 

“Don’t worry,” He assured his mother, seeing as his father had run off to assist in any way he could. “She’s In a better place now.”

Over the years he’d learned more about the ghosts, though he never seemed to learn everything he wanted. He tried to help those who needed it, assisting all who needed it in passing on. 

It never seemed like a big deal until he saw his own mother pass on. Her body lay next to him, rapidly cooling, yet she stood beside him at the same time. 

“Is it you,” He asks. “Or are you who the disease made her?”

“My sweet boy,” Claudia cries. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to hurt like that. I love you.”

“I love you too.” Stiles tells her. “But you can’t stay here; it will only hurt me more.”

Claudia nods, “I’ll go sweet baby boy, but please, take care of your father.”

“Always.” Stiles promises. 

Then Claudia is gone, and it’s just Stiles and an empty corpse. 

So truly, he had come by his obsession with the macabre quite naturally. Thus, it’s no surprise to anyone when Stiles calls Scott to come search for half a body with him. 

They don’t find the body, not yet, but they get near enough that Stiles’ life changes forever. He sees a waif of a girl, a ghost really, and he finds himself drawn to her. Unwittingly, he lengthens his stride and begins to leave Scott behind. The ghost leads him straight into his father’s arms and Stiles can’t help but curse even as he hopes Scott gets home safe. 

The ghost only smiles at him and follows him into the cruiser. 

“So,” Stiles starts when they’re alone and no one can comment on the sheriff's son talking to himself. “What’s your name and why are you still here?”

She blinks rapidly. “You can see me?”

“Well yeah,” Stiles replies slowly. “Why did you follow me if you didn’t realize that?”

“I knew you were the sheriff's son so I was going to follow you home and snoop through your dad’s stuff to see if I could set him on the right track.”

Stiles shakes his head. “It’ll be easier if you just let me know your name and the name of your killer.” 

“I’m Laura Hale,” the ghost tells him, “and it was my Uncle Peter who killed me. That won’t help your dad though, Peter is still laying catatonic in his hospital bed. Killing me was a fluke, he could only move because it was a full moon.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says. “You’re going to have to explain a little more than that.”

As the deputy drives them home, Stiles listens to Laura’s story. It sounds a little fantastical what with werewolves and hunters, but as he stands on his front porch and raises an objection Laura scoffs. 

“You see dead people and my story is hard to believe. Please.” 

As he lets them into the house, Stiles has to concede her point. After all, if one form of the supernatural exists why wouldn’t there be others. 

“What I don’t understand is why Peter killed you,” Stiles admits. “What did he have to gain?”

“My power,” Laura explains. “I am- was- an Alpha. That means my wounds healed quicker and I was stronger than an average wolf. By killing me, Peter gained that.”

Stiles nods, “So he just didn’t care that you're his niece?”

Laura’s face contorts into an ugly expression. Her eyes seem to fill with an inexplicable emotion and Stiles is forced to wonder why her killer doesn’t bring her rage, but rather a basketful of other emotions. 

“I don’t think he realized I was his niece.”

“So now he’s an amnesiac as well?” Stiles’ brow climbs higher up his face. 

“No,” Laura shakes her head. “I think he’s insane, or at least he was. We’ll have to wait and see what the alpha power does to him to determine if he still is.”

“We need to determine what his next step is,” Stiles mutters running his hands over his face. 

Laura hums, “That’s easy. He’ll want to build his pack; Peter wasn’t ready for the Alpha power, not in the state he was in. For now at least, he’ll be running on instinct.”

Stiles freezes. “Build his pack how?” 

“By biting people I would imagine,” Laura informs him. 

“Shit!” Stiles cries scrambling for his phone, “Shit! I left Scotty out there alone.”

“Calm yourself,” Laura demands. “Peter won’t hurt him, the worst he’ll do is turn him. But either way, there’s nothing you can do.”

Stiles finishes sending the hastily assembled text to Scott and looks back at Laura. “If your uncle hurt Scott, I’ll kill him myself.”

Stiles phone chimes quietly and he takes a breath of relief as it’s confirmed that Scott got home safely. 

Laura sighs, “Go to bed Stiles, we can deal with this in the morning.” 

“You shouldn’t even be around in the morning; you should pass on soon.”

“I don’t think I will,” Laura tells him. “What is it that the movies always talk about, unfinished business? Well I have a lot.”

Stiles falls asleep to thoughts of ghosts and white lights and werewolves. He dreams of glowing red eyes and snarling faces. 

Laura is still there in the morning. 

“What now?” Stiles asks, raising a brow and the ghost hovering in his room. 

Laura’s brow wrinkles. “I don’t know, I’ve never been a ghost before. I guess I’ll keep an eye on Peter while you’re at school.” 

Stiles bites his thumbnail nervously. “I’m not sure how far you can get from me? I’ve never heard anything about anyone else seeing ghosts and I don’t know if that means they can’t see them or ghosts can’t exist away from me without going to the light or if I’m hallucinating or what?”

“You’re not hallucinating,” Laura reassures him. “Now, explain why you’re worried.”

“I’ve been seeing ghosts since I was a kid, okay? In all this time, I’ve never met a ghost who remembers their time away from me. It’s like their afterlife is paused until I come along and press play on their after life, then they pass on their information to me, and then go into the light. The longest anyone has ever stayed after their death was a week.”

Stiles took a deep breath. 

“It just makes me wonder if I’m the key factor when it comes to ghosts, like if you all would’ve passed on if I weren’t here.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Laura smiles. “Stiles, even if you’re the reason I didn’t pass on, you’re giving me a chance to take care of my family. I could never blame you for that, but if you’re truly worried you’re tethering me somehow I can test it while you get ready for school.”

“Okay,” Stiles nods, “Yeah, let’s do that.”

Laura leaves the boy to his own devices, eager to test her new limits. Stiles is right, she wasn’t conscious before meeting him. It’s as though his presence jolted her spirit into action and now she needs to test what she can do in this new form. 

Walking through walls is certainly a new sensation, one that she could become accustomed to. She decided against honing that particular skill right now, her new existence would give her plenty of time to practice. 

Instead, Laura wanders away from the Stilinski's and towards the preserve. She finds herself standing in a crime scene looking down at the area her body had been laying only last night. Shaking her head, Laura turns away and continues to drift through the world. She finds herself at the town limits, but when she attempts to travel any farther she finds that she can’t move. Curious, she steps back in the direction she had come; she moves with ease. Once more, she attempts to cross the town limits but finds herself incapable. 

Mind racing, Laura makes her way back to the Stilinski household. 

She finds Stiles seated at the table talking to his father about school and takes a moment to consider. He’s so young, still in highschool, and she’s dragging him into her mess. Peter could kill him if he finds out the boy is involved and it would be her fault. 

She pushes it aside for now.

“I can get to the town limits,” Laura whispers, “But not past them.”

Stiles nods once, sharply, and she’s fairly certain it was addressed to her and not the Sheriff. She waits, impatiently tapping her fingers along the table as Stiles wraps up the conversation with his father and heads to the door. They do not speak until they are seated in Stiles’ old Jeep and can be sure that no one will overhear Stiles. 

“So,” Stiles says, “You can investigate while I am at school, or did you have other plans?”

“No,” Laura replies, “I don’t know what I’ll be doing today.”

“I’ll see what I can figure out,” Stiles tells her, “Maybe there will be more ghosts.”

Laura nods, “We can compare notes at the end of the day.”

They separate and Laura heads to her uncle's bed side. It’s odd to see him, so fragile looking and yet so dangerous. She wonders if Peter even knows what he’s done; the look in his wide, unblinking eyes seems to point to no.

She’s still contemplating her uncle when she feels a harsh tug on her person. She turns around but there is nothing there. Still, she feels the sensation again. The third time she feels the sensation she finds that she has somehow gone from the hospital to the high school. 

“Laura,” Stiles whispers as he fishes in his locker for books.

Laura stands besides him speaking loudly and she takes in the scene about her, “How’d you bring me back here?”

“What,” Stiles asks, “I just called your name and hoped you’d hear, but Laura, I think your uncle bit Scott last night.”

“What?!?” Laura exclaims. “What makes you think that?”

Stiles glances around nervously bringing his hands up in front of his face as if covering a yawn, “Scott said a wolf bit him last night; Laura, there are no wolves in California.”

“Okay,” Laura breathes. “Okay, we got this. I was an alpha, I can help you train Scott.” 

“What about dealing with Peter?”

Laura shakes her head. “It can wait, Scott is dangerous right now. He needs training.”

“Dangerous how?” Stiles asks looking around cautiously. 

Laura grimaces, “He won’t have any control, who knows what he’ll do. Look, just make plans to meet him after school and we can start training. For now, I’ll keep an eye on him during classes.”

For once in his life, Stiles follows directions. 

Stiles tries to convince Scott that he’s really a werewolf, but nothing comes to fruition. Instead Scott ignores him in favor of mooning over Allison. 

“She’s an Argent.” Laura growls. “She can’t be trusted.”

“She’s a teenager.” Stiles protests.

“So are you, and you have your little hidden talents. Argents are raised to kill from birth, she could just be hiding it.”

“Fine. We’ll watch her, but that’s it.”

After school, Stiles and Scott return to the woods, seeking out Scott’s inhaler. Stiles can’t help the paranoia that swallows him, his eyes flickering left and right as he looks for an attack. 

“This is private property.” A man’s voice says and Stiles jumps. 

“Derek.” Laura breathes. “Why did you come back?”

“We’re looking for an inhaler.” Stiles replies though his mind is racing as he considers Laura’s brother. 

Derek hands it over and asks them to leave the property. No doubt planning on seeking out his sister. Stiles is suddenly struck with an idea. 

“Sure,” he agrees and in the background he hears Laura asking him what he’s planning. “We can leave, but are you sure want a new bitten werewolf running around without-“

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence as Derek grabs the front of his shirt and hoists him into the air. 

“What did you just say?”

Stiles chokes, looking at Laura who is hovering behind Derek anxiously. Scott is looking around, trying to find a big branch or something to attack Derek with. 

“Repeat after me,” she instructs and he obeys. 

“The Hales are well known in the supernatural community, I was just hoping you could help my friend. He got bit by a rogue werewolf last night, surely you can smell it?”

Derek stops for a moment, smells the air, and releases Stiles beforeing stepping back and towards Scott. 

“What the hell?” Scott objects. “I know Stiles is messing with me, but come on dude, you pulled someone else into this stupid werewolf joke.”

“This is not a joke,” Derek objects before bringing forth his beta shift. 

Scott shrieks, jumping backwards. “Holy shit, HOLY SHIT!!!” 

Derek snorts before turning back to Stiles, “I’ll help train him, but how did you know the Hales are supernaturals? You don’t smell like anything other than human.”

“Whatever you do, don’t lie.” Laura cautions. “He can hear your heartbeat.”

Stiles bites his lip. He’s never told anyone living about his abilities before, and he doesn’t plan to start now. Instead he settles on half truths. 

“Cora was in my grade, before the fire.” He then focuses on Laura. “Your sister isn’t very discreet.”

Laura laughs, high and clear. “God, Peter would like you.”

Then her face closes off, doubtlessly as she recalls her uncle had killed her. 

“Well then,” Stiles shuffles awkwardly. “I’ll leave you two here to do werewolf things.”

“Stiles, wait!” Scott’s objects, but Stiles begins to sprint away from him, calling over his shoulder. 

“Have fun!”

“Stiles!” Laura calls, laughing. “That was mean!”

“I know, but I don’t want to stay for werewolf training, we have other things to do. Besides, Scotty needs a little bit of toughening up.”

“Where are we going?”

Stiles hesitates. “To see your uncle.”

Laura takes a deep breath, an oddity in and of itself as ghosts don’t need to breathe, before nodding. 

“Okay, Okay.”

When they find themselves in Peter’s room, Laura hovers at the door frame. She’s scared to enter because she doesn’t know what she’ll see, the poor scarred uncle she’d abandoned or the crazed man who’d killed her. 

“He may be able to hear you still,” Laura offers, though she still doesn’t approach. 

“Hello Peter,” Stiles greets. “I know you killed Laura, I know you’re an Alpha. I just want to know, why?”

Peter doesn’t answer. 

“Was it because you needed the power to heal? Or did you want it for something else?”

“What do you mean?” Laura asks. 

“I took the Hale fire case files to school today, I know that there’s no way a fire report got deemed accidental that quickly, not unless there was something else going on. It was arson, and it was covered up.”

Peter’s eyes flare red and Stiles flinches back slightly. 

“Hello, Alpha. So, are you going to go after your family’s killer?”

There’s a long silence, but Stiles waits it out. 

“Yes.” 

“Really?” Stiles asks, “Then you know who did it?” 

“Argent.” Peter spits. 

“Kate, right?”

Peter growls, “Not alone.” 

“Are you planning to kill everyone involved, then?”

“Yes,” Peter says. “You too, if I have to.”

Laura wrings her hands. “We can’t stop him Stiles, you don’t have the power, and I don’t want Derek to have to.”

Stiles bites his lips, trying to puzzle out what he can say to Laura that won’t seem odd to the man before him. It hasn’t escaped his notice how keen Peter’s eyes are, how closely he’s watching Stiles. Despite his difficult speaking and murderous insanity, it seems that Peter is quite clever.

“I won’t interfere. I know what you’re willing to do to take down the Argents; I just have a few questions.”

“Ask.”

“Why did you kill Laura?”

Peter freezes, eyes narrowing. “Abandoned me.”

“Oh.” Laura squeaks. She sounds small and sad. “Oh.”

“What do you mean? How did she abandon you?”

“Left.”

Laura sighs. “After the fire, I took Derek and left for New York. Peter was too weak to move, and even after he healed, I just never brought him to us. I never thought about his packbonds. I didn’t realize he could feel them break.”

“So, you’re packless?” Stiles asks. 

“No. Bit beta.”

“Scott will never agree to help you,” Stiles tells him. “He’s way too invested in morality.”

“My beta.” Peter growls. “My pack.”

“Stiles,” Laura interrupts. “Don’t aggravate him. He isn’t stable. He won’t be until he has a stable pack bond.”

“I’ll do it.” Stiles offers suddenly. “I’ll be your pack; I’ll help you, but you can only kill the people involved in the fire. No one else.”

“Deal.”

Laura hisses, “Don’t do this! You don’t know if the bite will take. It could kill you.”

Stiles’s eyes flick over to Laura. He takes in her translucent form, thinks back on the rest of the ghosts he’s worked with over the years. He wonders how being in a pack will affect his abilities.

“Wait,” Stiles shouts. “One more stipulation. I won’t be a werewolf.”

“Why?”

Stiles shifts his weight, debating the best way to answer. “I’m scared. Who knows what will happen if you bite me?”

“No bite. Bond by scent.”

The expression on his face must show his confusion as Laura steps forwards to explain, “Packs show affection through scenting. Peter needs to be able to smell himself on you, it provides comfort to him.”

Stiles takes a cautious step forwards, finally putting himself within Peter’s arm range. The man’s hand comes down on his shoulders, pressing him down to his knees. Once there, Peter simply leans in close and presses his cheek against Stiles’s while resting one hand on the back of his neck.

It’s frighteningly intimate, and for a moment, Stiles wonders what he’s gotten himself into. He can hear Laura sobbing in the background, mourning the loss of her pack, of her ability to be pack. It strikes Stiles that even if she stays as a ghost, she’ll never talk to her family again, never scent them.

“Pack.” Peter tells him.

“Pack.”

When Stiles leaves Peter, it's with a strange feeling in his chest. 

It's odd, being pack to a man he knows has killed and will kill again, it’s stranger still that he has the ghost of the woman Peter had killed looking over his shoulder, keeping him informed of werewolf traditions and practices. Still, he powers through it all, helping Peter locate Kate and Gerard, and, once they’re gone, create a story of the poor comatose man who’d been kidnapped by the two of them, abandoned in a basement and escaping on his own when his captors miss coming down to torment him one day. He keeps his scars for now. He’ll heal them later when he can explain it away.

Peter reclaims his life, even as he ruins the Argents’, dragging their names through the mud. He never tells Derek that he killed his sister, instead choosing to claim that Kate had done so, and Peter had merely inherited the Alpha power after the fact. He pretends that is how he gained the strength to escape the Argent’s, Stiles never corrects him. 

Laura… struggles. She loves Peter, most days she even forgives him. She can’t imagine what it was like for him, to be trapped in his own mind, reliving the loss of his pack over and over until his only two anchors to this world were taken from him. Still, it’s hard to watch Peter lie to Derek, to interact with him when she never will again.

“I could tell the truth,” Stiles offers. He hopes she says no. He’s content with his little pack, though he wishes Scott was willing to do more than an obligatory full moon interaction once a month.

“No. Derek deserves to have some family left. I can’t take that from him, not when Peter was- he wasn’t himself. He was feral. Niow, now that he has his betas, his pack, he’s much better.”

When Stiles is eighteen years old, Peter suggests a summer roadtrip, just him and his alpha.

“Come on,” Peter had smiled, “Before you go off to college, you should see a little bit of the world, spend some time with me.”  
“I… I’ll think about it.”

It isn’t that he doesn’t want to go. He does, desperately, but there’s Laura to think about. She’s been with him for two years now, the longest of any ghost. In that time frame, there have been others, but they’ve all fulfilled their purpose, and gone into the light. Laura though, Laura he worries about. He doesn’t want her to leave.

He’s worried that she never will.

“Laura,” he whispers once he’s finally alone. 

“I heard. I think you should go.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Will you be okay?”

Laura sighs. “Stiles, we’ve been over this. You aren’t responsible for me. I’m a grown woman. Go, enjoy time with your alpha.”

“I’ll go,” Stiles agrees. “But do we want to test if you can come?”

“I can’t leave the town,” Laura reminds him, one brow arched.

“No,” Stiles corrects her. “You couldn’t leave town two years ago. A lot of things have changed since then, and you’re the only ghost I’ve ever met who has stayed around this long, the only one who can function when I’m not near them. If it's possible for any ghost, it’s you, and if you can, well, don’t you wanna get out of here?”

They test it that night. First, they try Laura leaving on her own. It doesn’t work. Then they try leaving together.

Laura hits the barrier, but as Stiles crosses over she feels it dissolve beneath her hand and, for the first time in years, she steps out of Beacon Hills. 

There’s a wide grin on her face when she turns back to Stiles. “Guess we’re going on a road trip together!”

The thing about a road trip is there is a lot less privacy, particularly when one of the participants is a werewolf. Stiles rarely has a chance to speak with Laura, or well, to speak back to her. She’s free to talk to him the entire time, and talk she does. Still, it’s strange, different that he can’t speak back.

He wonders briefly, one night in Montanna, what it means that he won’t tell his alpha he speaks to ghosts. Ignoring the issue of his dead niece, Peter would be fascinated by the concept. He’s a good alpha, he would never take advantage of Stiles’ ability, and yet he still can’t bring himself to talk about them. A part of Stiles wonders if it’s because he’s lost his ability to be truthful and open. Another wonders if its because he knows when he finally opens up, he knows the whole truth will come spilling out, Laura and all. 

It all comes to a head in Kansas, while Stiles is sitting in the car waiting for Peter to get back from the restroom. 

“What do you think, Laura? Should I tell him? Not about you of course.”

“Stiles,” Laura says, her voice subdued and drawn.

Stiles looks back to her, then past her where he sees Peter walking up to the car, eyebrows raised.

Quickly, Stiles gets out his phone, and, as Peter enters the car, he mimes hanging up.

“Talking to someone?” Peter asks. His voice is smooth, and if Stiles weren’t as close to the man as he is, the one living person on earth who knows the truth about him, he may not have noticed how tense the other man is.

“Give it up,” Laura tells him. “He knows something isn’t right, you’ll never be able to get away with hiding it now.”

“Hey,” Stiles snaps, because if he’s going to tell the truth what’s the point of hiding anything else. “I think two years was a pretty solid run considering you shouldn’t exist anymore.”

Laura laughs, and Stiles turns to his alpha who starts the car and pulls back out onto the highway.

“Talk.” Peter orders.

“I will,” Stiles promises. “I will, just promise me something. Tell me that I’ll always be pack. No matter what I say.”

“Oh Stiles,” Peter sighs, linking their fingers together over the console, “You’re more than just pack.”

Stiles smiles up at him, and slowly, ever so slowly, the truth comes pouring out of him.

“So Laura is here right now?” Peter asks, hours later when they’re sitting in a meadow off the side of a back road.

“Yes,” Stiles admits, eyes flickering over to her. “She usually is, we’re friends, best friends really.”

“Well,” Peter hums. “She may want to look away for a moment.”

Then Peter leans in and kisses Stiles, sweet and soft.

When he pulls away, Laura is gone.

Stiles gives a watery chuckle into his chest. “So that’s what she was waiting for. She wanted to see me through to a happy ending.”


End file.
